drwtsn32 and Windows Server 2008

drwtsn32.exe is not part of Windows Server 2008.
Does anybody know why?

Is it legal to copy (and install) drwtsn32.exe via an own setup?

Hi KM,

Yes, the drwtsn32.exe is removed in Vista and Windows Server2008 since we 
introduced a more reliable unhandled exception solution after Vista. Below 
is the backgroup story:

Pre-Vista, when an unhandled exception is thrown, the user-mode exception 
dispatcher will unwind the stack and find default unhandled exception 
handler in the Kernel32 which calls CreateProcess to launch 
drwtsn32.exe.(The real process may be more complicated. For example, 
drwtsn32.exe is looked up from the Aedebug key in the registry). These are 
all done in user-mode. However, if the user-mode stack is exhausted or 
corrupted, the exception stack unwind may fail and we may be unable to call 
CreateProcess to launch drwtsn32.exe. This will result the process silent 
termination which is a bad experience to the end user. 

After Vsita, we introduced more reliable achitecture to address the above 
problem. Windows Vista moves error handling(CreateProcess code) out of the 
context of the crashing process into to a new service, Windows Error 
Reporting (WER). The exception handling and dispatching is purely done in 
kernel-mode now. When the unhandled exception occurs, it is the kernel that 
notifies the WER service(using LPC maybe) and WER is looking for a JIT 
debugger in Aedebug registry key. Please refer to the "Enhanced Crash 
Support" section in Mark's article below for details:
"Inside the Windows Vista Kernel: Part 3"
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc162458.aspx

Since the exception does not rely on the user-mode stack now, the process 
termination will always be caught. 

Ok, enough backgroud story now. Can you tell me why you need drwtsn32 in 
Windows Server2008? Do you want to get crash dump for faulty application in 
Windows Server2008? Actually, Windows Error Report tool of Vista SP1 and 
Windows Server2008 also have the feature of crash dump collecting, see the 
link below for details:
"Collecting User-Mode Dumps"
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb787181(VS.85).aspx

The other options for Vista and Windows Server2008 are Adplus.vbs and 
DebugDiag etc..:
"How to create a user-mode process dump file in Windows Vista"
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/931673
"Capturing Application Crash Dumps"
http://blogs.technet.com/askperf/archive/2007/06/15/capturing-application-cr
ash-dumps.aspx

Finally, if you really want to use drwtsn32, you may manually set it up. 
Please use this approach at your own risk since Microsoft officially does 
not support this approach:
"Resurrecting Dr. Watson on Vista"
http://www.dumpanalysis.org/blog/index.php/2007/05/19/resurrecting-dr-watson
-on-vista/

Hope this helps.

Best regards,
Jeffrey Tan
Microsoft Online Community Support

Delighting our customers is our #1 priority. We welcome your comments and 
suggestions about how we can improve the support we provide to you. Please 
feel free to let my manager know what you think of the level of service 
provided. You can send feedback directly to my manager at: 
msdnmg@microsoft.com.

==================================================
Get notification to my posts through email? Please refer to 
http://msdn.microsoft.com/subscriptions/managednewsgroups/default.aspx#notif
ications.

Note: The MSDN Managed Newsgroup support offering is for non-urgent issues 
where an initial response from the community or a Microsoft Support 
Engineer within 1 business day is acceptable. Please note that each follow 
up response may take approximately 2 business days as the support 
professional working with you may need further investigation to reach the 
most efficient resolution. The offering is not appropriate for situations 
that require urgent, real-time or phone-based interactions or complex 
project analysis and dump analysis issues. Issues of this nature are best 
handled working with a dedicated Microsoft Support Engineer by contacting 
Microsoft Customer Support Services (CSS) at 
http://msdn.microsoft.com/subscriptions/support/default.aspx.
==================================================
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no
rights.